LAHORE: Due to threats from district administration and other quarters, the opposition has directed their elected union council nazims, naib nazims and councillors to shift from Lahore to Peshawar till October 6, sources told Daily Times.

They said that a number of union council nazims, naib nazims and councillors had left for Peshawar by train and bus and the remaining were on their way. The councillors had been directed to return to Lahore on October 6 to cast their votes for district and town nazims.

A senior Pakistan Mulism League-Nawaz leader said that the opposition leaders took this decision on complaints by councillors that they were being threatened by police station house officers and other officials to change their loyalties and vote for regime-backed candidates.

He said that the opposition had the support of more than 1,000 councillors but the ruling party was pressing elected members to support Mian Amer Mahmood. He said that the threatened councillors had been asked to shift to Peshawar while the rest of the councillors had been directed to shift to other places in Lahore or outside it. qamar jabbar

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-10-2005_pg7_19

Not a sign that any democracy, quasi or otherwise, would be proud of, especially when it is government sponsored and not sponsored by political thugs who specialise in political skullduggery and mayhem in the subcontinent.

Unless democracy is given legitimate form, the true voice of the people will never be known.

It appears that the true voice of the people maybe dangerous and hence the military guided democracy is forced to adopted rather undemocratic ways to gag this voice.

Possibly, Musharraf is right to gag a democracy that is unware of the responsibilities it has to Nation building!